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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTransportation Board - Minutes - 01/17/2001REGULAR MEETING MINUTES of the TRANSPORTATION BOARD JANUARY 17, 2001 5:45 p.m. City Hall West — CIC Room BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT: Dan Gould Bruce Henderson Tim Johnson Brad Miller Chris Ricord Brent Thordarson Heather Trantham Mary Warring Steve Yeldell CITY STAFF IN ATTENDANCE: Gary Diede Joe Frank Tom Frazier Gaylene Rossiter Ken Mannon Dave Leicester Randy Hensley Mark Jackson Tom Reiff Ron Phillips Cynthia Scott Chair Johnson called the meeting to order at 5:50 p.m. ABSENT: Tom Kramer Ray Moe GUESTS IN ATTENDANCE: Vicky Jacobsen Jeremy Klop - LSA Karla — Charlier and Associates Mark- Bikestation, Inc. Transportation Board Minutes January 17, 2001 1. PUBLIC COMMENT None. Page 2 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES There was a motion and a second to approve the November 15, 2000 meeting minutes as presented. Thordarson requested a substitution of words in his comments on page7. Specifically, he requested that the word "people" be replaced with "survey respondents." There being no other comments, the motion was called. The motion carried unanimously with the above revision. 3. COUNCIL LIAISON REPORT None. 4. ACTION ITEMS None. 5. DISCUSSION ITEMS a) TRANSIT STANDARDS UPDATE — Rossiter Rossiter introduced the project team, which included consultants and City staff. She explained that the Transit Design Standards and Guidelines are used by developers to design transit stop facilities. One of the first steps in updating this manual was to consult with various city staff. There were two public workshops held to see what users and the general public would like to see at the bus stops. The third step was to develop the manual. Rossiter and consultant Vicky Jacobsen explained each of the four sections of the manual in detail via PowerPoint presentation. Upon conclusion of the presentation, board members had the following comments/questions: Yeldell: What was the process for the developers? Rossiter: This document is referenced in the Land Use Code and it says there that the developer is required to include transit stops as shown in the Transit Standards document. Rossiter represents Transfort/transit at the City's development review meetings. Frazier stated that the first customer would be the city in the placement of 100 stops/shelters. Thordarson: Why isn't the document called the Fort Collins Transit Stop Design Standards and Guidelines? Vicky responded that this is how it is referred to in the Land Use Code, but could eventually be renamed. Trantham: Who would be responsible for shoveling snow from the stops? Rossiter said that the developer is not responsible, the City is and that there is now a full-time Transportation Board Minutes January 17, 2001 Page 3 person on staff that does maintenance on the stops. Trantham then inquired as to how stringent these guidelines are compared to other municipalities. Jacobsen stated that the guidelines represent attainable goals. Thordarson: What percentages of the stops currently meet the standards? Rossiter: I would say roughly 25%, perhaps. Ricord: At each of the different types of transit stops, how many bicycle parking spaces will be planned for each of those types. Rossiter: For type A, that is something that will depend on looking at the actual ridership. At Type B, at least 1 bike rack that holds 2-5 bikes. Type C would potentially have none. Ricord: That seems a bit light to me. More seem to be needed. b) TRANSFORT/DIAL-A-RIDE & POUDRE R-1 DISTRICT TRANSIT and SUPPORT OPERATIONS — Rossiter Rossiter pointed out that the board received the summary in their packets, which consists of 8 pages and that the document itself is about 90 pages. Rossiter then introduced the team. There were two goals of the project — to increase school district transportation service and the Transfort/DAR service without increasing the cost OR to decrease cost without decreasing service. The primary methodology was described and outlined on page 1 of the summary. Rossiter discussed the sort -term recommendations, outcomes and what the challenges & constraints are. The desired outcome is to be able to share services to schools and the general public, consider a joint facility, implement a joint human resources procedures on recruiting, selecting, screening, testing, training, and job pooling. Warring asked what the negative complications were in other cities that have made the FTA wary. Kevin spoke to the case studies stating that the bottom line is that there are different challenges and constraints for different opportunities. The largest is the development, operation and maintenance of joint facilities. In case studies, it was often found that when several types of vehicles i.e., fire engine, police car and a transit bus are all in need of repair, it was found that the transit bus was often pushed to the end of the list. So, they are understandably very wary about using FTA funds to put together a facility where they are going to be competing for resources. Chair Johnson commented that the first part of the goal should be the only goal. In other words, leave off the part about decreasing service because it is already under served. c) I-25 CORRIDOR DESIGN STANDARDS — Jackson/Frank Chair Johnson requested that Jackson give a brief update on the Truck Route Project. Jackson stated that the last time he spoke to the Board, there wasn't much interest among the elected officials from any entity that is participating in this to form a policy level committee, so staff decided not to do that. Right after the holidays, the Larimer County Commissioners did a 180 and decided they do want that political Transportation Board Minutes January 17, 2001 Page 4 level forum. The project team has been scrambling to try and get elected official representatives from each of the affected germane agencies. Representing the City of Fort Collins will be Bertschy and Weitkunat. Kathay Rennels will be the County Commissioner on the committee. Joe Frank then took the floor and stated that this item will be brought to the board more than once in the next few months and that the purpose of being before the board tonight is to give an overview and present some of the issues the project is facing. Jeremy, with LSA, has been involved since the project's inception. Current land use and development plans were studied and assumptions were long-term Master Street Plan improvements; 2020 Transit Plan service; NFRTAFS recommendations for rail service; and no additional lanes on I-25. The concept of a parallel network on either side of I-25 and with supporting east/west arterial roadways, and improvements in some areas is emerging as the recommended framework. Once the team decided that was a goal, they had to ask how it could be done in 8 to 9 jurisdictions between Fort Collins and Berthoud. How could a plan be created that everyone is going to agree to? Over the past two months, the team has been individually meeting with transportation planning and traffic engineering staffs in Berthoud, Johnstown, Loveland, Windsor, Larimer County and Fort Collins to discuss options. They have also had to consider where the TAFS rail connection ends up and how connectivity plays a part. The product that comes out of this effort will be a proposed network for the entire corridor and along with that network, it will not only be roadway recommendations and sizing recommendations for these facilities, but also multimodal connections in terms of bike and ped and eventually rail connections in accordance with TAFS and especially in accordance with projected development in the Loveland area. It will also include feeder bus service. A handout was distributed showing proposed I-25 corridor improvements for Fort Collins. Jeremy talked about proposed Master Street Plan changes in terms of new roadways and widened roadways. Upon conclusion of the presentation, Warring asked about the cost. Jeremy stated the estimate is in the ballpark of $200M. Warring felt that the estimate is very low and really thinks the cost need to be adjusted. She commented that the truth is, once the interstate starts to fail, people are going to get on the parallel road for long trips and it is going to become an entirely different use. I don't think that anyone is anticipating that they want to see a heavily used arterial in what are mainly, at this point, residential areas. I wonder if we are being accurate in projecting how much traffic is really going to use, for instance, CR 5. Are we really going to have these green and yellow levels on CR 5 in 20 years? Jeremy responded by pointing out that as I-25 congests, those trips aren't going to go away. They are still going to spill into the adjacent facilities. He added that more money has been put into the model than any other he has ever dealt with and thinks that it is an accurate model and the best tool there is to predict where traffic is going to distribute and what it is going to look like on network "A," "B," and so on. Transportation Board Minutes January 17, 2001 Page 5 He further stated that the model is based on socioeconomic data characteristics and a host of other functions including transit assumptions for the region. During more disucssion, the following concerns were heard from the board: sprawl, air quality, VMT, lack of multi -modal emphasis, and pushing the interstate problem to the periphery. Warring stated that the bottom line for her is that she feels the team wants to invest in roads to accommodate cars and she would like to see more of a shift towards transit and other modes. Frank stated that if there is something that can be done to emphasize that in the plan they would do that. Chair Johnson also agreed that there needs to be more realistic cost numbers. Also +6 cos}s a+e Ii btl }o exeud 4 DO!YY�j and mcW 6c cbublq itu# a }1t gssw �}ior +haF i 2Swill riot Cve(a�yoamd bey�d (e�/la+ys r✓m1 no'} d) BIKE DEPOT FEASIBILITY STUDY — Reiff Tom Reiff stated that in October 2000, the City of Fort Collins Transportation Planning Department began working with a consultant to determine the feasibility of building a bike -depot in Fort Collins. The study will also identify a suitable site for a depot. Due to the high -density levels necessary for a bike -depot to succeed, it is likely that the feasibility study will identify a site somewhere within the downtown area. The study will be completed by April 2001. A video clip from CNN was shown to the board. As seen in the video, typical amenities at a bike -depot include free, secure, valet bicycle parking, changing rooms, bicycle repairs and accessories, air compressors, and transit information. Other services might include bicycle safety and repair classes, showers, bicycle loaner programs, and food and specialty services. One of the many goals of the project is to determine whether this would be successful in Fort Collins. The team did some research and found a community similar to Fort Collins that does not sit on a transit corridor as the ones in California do. They discovered Applethom, Holland, which is about 100 miles east of Amsterdam. They have similar population density and no transit system. They built four depots and it has been very successful. Based on gathered input, including information from public workshop/survey respondents, three potential sites have been identified. They are: 1) Downtown Transit Center; 2) Oak Street Plaza -east or west; and 3) Spring Creek Park at BNSF Railroad. The amenities people want are covered, secure bike parking; restrooms; changing areas; transit/bicycling information; bicycle repairs and potential rentals. Also, the public also strongly indicated they want a meeting hall, not just for cycling groups, but for the general public and a cafe. Transportation Board Minutes January 17, 2001 Page 6 Phillips asked what the make-up was of the 25 people at the public workshop and whether they were invited individually or was it a general advertisement? Were they all cyclists? Reiff stated that there were advertisements on channel 27, several press releases in major publications in the area, the City's web page, mailing list from Bike - to -Work Day and it was announced to all members of the Downtown Business Association. There were a lot of cyclists and business owners that participated. For those that couldn't attend the meeting but wanted to, a survey was mailed to them and was returned to us. Additional public open houses will be held in the future, but definitely want to have location sited and some conceptual drawings from the architect before we do. Phillips stated that a lot of good work has gone into this, but in thinking about implementation, it would be difficult to generate money/priority for this in terms of funding. One thing we should consider is folding this in with the Mason Street Transportation Corridor and in going for federal funds for that corridor - - plan for one of these at each end of the corridor, perhaps. Yeldell commented that this a good opportunity for the commercial sector and would help generate needed funding. Stated he would like to see an analysis from the private and commercial sector. Chair Johnson brought up the example of the Dairy Queen on College — it is driven by the bike traffic. Warring stated that there needs to be much more public input in order to demonstrate the desire for the project. Reiff stated that they want to set up a pilot program for the depot at various locations on Bike to Work Day to get it in front of the community. e) CAMPUS WEST SUB -AREA PLAN - Mapes Mapes stated that the CWSAP is a direct follow up and implementation component to City Plan. City Plan designated this area, which is on Elizabeth just west of CSU and extending as far west as the Taco Bell, as one of a handful of anchoring districts with policies that describe the urban village ideas that are being talked about in planning all over the United States today. The current lay out of the area obviously doesn't fit the vision. Issues were identified and shown to the board via slides. Shown were areas of neglect, areas without sidewalks or too narrow of sidewalks, missing connections between residential and commercial areas, peds walking in bike lanes, etc. A consulting team was hired that had experts in marketing analysis, redevelopment and financing and urban design in transportation. They first did a market analysis to see if the vision of the area as a hub of activity was feasible and to what degree. The preliminary analyses from that group led staff to affirm the vision that they have laid out and encouraged them to go forth. So, staff contacted property owners to share the ideas with them. As it turned out, the property owners disagreed with the market analysis. Transportation Board Minutes January 11, 2001 Page 1 Their thinking is that no matter what the area looks like, students are going to be there and they do dominate the market, so why put money into it? However, discussions among owners, staff, and consultants have led to a concept for a system of bike lane and sidewalk improvements that could be installed at any time, without changing existing buildings and parking lots, requiring only one additional foot of ROW from properties on each side of the street. Mapes brought sketches to show the current status of the proposed concept. The remaining schedule for wrapping up the subarea plan is ambitious. Staff will continue to meet with owners as needed. They will present the Draft Plan to Boards and Commissions. The Planning & Zoning Board hearing on recommendation to City Council will be February 15. There will be an Open House on the draft Plan. The Plan will be presented to City Council for adoption on February 20, by resolution, as an element of City Plan. At the end of the presentation, there were a few general questions that Mapes answered. 6. REPORTS a) BOARD MEMBER REPORTS Thordarson: S. Taft Hill Oversi". Near Harmony it appears that the preliminary overlay has been done, but the striping on the southbound lane goes right outside the edge of the asphalt. Is this the way it was intended? It's been this way for a couple of months now. Snow Removal on Bike Lanes. After the last couple of storms, there has been some icing in the shaded areas on eastbound Drake (either side of Taft Hill), forcing riders to go out into the traffic lane to avoid it. A second place where it's bad for bikes is on Shields. It appears to be plowed curb -to -curb with the exception of a quarter -mile stretch by CSU. This seems strange in that there is so much bike traffic in that area. Crackseal Material. Spoke with brother-in-law, who is in asphalt maintenance, about quick and easy crack seal solutions. Thordarson brought in a sample of a cord -like material that can be used. Thought perhaps if people were trained in applying the material, streets could be maintained by volunteers in neighborhoods. Gould: Snow Removal Kudos. I sent a complimentary note to the Streets Department recently. In the north Fort Collins area, especially CSU related streets, if the lane is even partially plowed, it helps so much and I thought they have done an excellent job. I think it would be great if we could classify and prioritize bicycle lanes for snow removal as we do streets. Transportation Board Minutes January 17, 2001 Page 8 I also saw some brushing off of bus stopsibenches as well as a small truck that was doing some de-icing at the stop! Have not seen that done before! Was great. Warring: E. Mulberry Committee. Thanks to all of you who Okayed my membership on this committee. It will probably be starting in February. Tax for the Roads Article. I saw this in the newspaper and wondered what you all thought of it. It made me mad! There is a $157M surplus and I thought I read that the intersection of Drake and Timberline, in an article from a couple of weeks ago, was going to be funded with Oversizing fees. It looks to me like we have a classic example of this impending growth and it is not paying its way. Also, on Mason Street Transportation Corridor, why do we have to go to the taxpayers for money? It seems to me that with the $157M surplus, the City should be making the contribution and putting in the extra support. It doesn't seem consistent to me that we (taxpayers) paid for it out of Building Community Choices and now we have to pay for the rest. Phillips stated that there is some misunderstanding of nomenclature here. There is not a $150M surplus. The City has about $150M in reserves, much of which is required for certain aspects of the financial health of the City. Utilities will use a large portion of it for new facilities. Again, the money is in reserves and stays there until they are needed and are not there for just any purpose. Warring suggested that as a board, perhaps we should go back to Council and tell them that when doing the City's budget they really need to put more consideration and funding into transportation needs. Miller agreed. Phillips stated that he brought information on the City's 10-year Capital Improvement Plan and Inventory, which led to a lengthy discussion about transportation needs. Ricord: Sharing the Road with Bicyclists and Cars Information. Thanks to whomever from SMARTTrips got this piece into the City's utility bill. This one caught my eye and it seems pretty relevant. Trantham: Truck Route Relocation Group. I attended the first meeting and the mission is to look for new ways to keep the trucks on 1-25 and then secondarily look at routes that are 2 miles north of Douglas Road. This is a much larger group than the last one I was on. It was pretty interesting. I'll keep you updated. b) COMMUNITY EDUCATION STRATEGY Dan Gould had a great letter that was published (although there was an error in the byline - "Don" Gould). This topic will be discussed in more detail at the next meeting. Transportation Board Minutes January 17, 2001 c) STAFF REPORTS Page 9 Phillips: Capital Improvement Program. Stated that he brought copies of the memo that he presented to the City Manager along with the Transportation Services Area's submittal regarding the Capital Improvement Program. This was discussed earlier in the meeting. Downtown Transit Center. It is under construction now and the scheduled completion is July 31 with move -in in early August. The total project cost is $2,652,2000 and the sources for that are General Fund - $953,800 and FTA Grant - $1,698,000. Reappointments. Congratulations to Chris, Ray and Dan for their reappointment to the Board. MPO News Update. Phillips has recommended that the MPO hire a full-time Executive Director for the MPO as the focus and the demands of that job have gotten to the place where a full-time person is needed. Their response was positive. If they officially approve it at their February meeting, we'll be seeing a transition take place in the next 3-6 months. Policy & Budget Manager Position. We received applications for the position and did an initial screening. There is now a list of seven candidates that will be interviewed by telephone and then a staff team will interview the top 3-5 out of that group in the next 2- 3 weeks. We hope to have that filled soon. Analysis of Amendment 23 Impacts, Hand out provided per Phillips' request from Colorado Municipal League. City of Fort Collins' Annual Report Video. Would like to show this when there is time on the agenda. Dan Gould stars and talks about the Mason Street Transportation Corridor. It may also be on channe127. Hydrogen Task Force Volunteer Request. Steve Yeldell volunteered. Scott will have Mike Smith contact Yeldell. Gould will be an alternate. Scott: February Planning Calendar. A calendar was provided that shows scheduled items for February, March and April as of this date. This will become a monthly handout for those who are interested in seeing what is on the horizon for Board meetings. Transportation Board Finance Sub -committee Meeting. The subcommittee will reconvene on January 25 at 6 p.m. Members of the committee are Thordarson, Ricord, Henderson, Johnson and Phillips. OTHER BUSINESS There being no other business, the meeting adjourned at Respectfully submitted, "/ •4o Cynthia L. Scott, Executive Administrative Assistant 10 P.M. „_r. A�, Vq iwa6w 7_1Z1101.